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1 Year Anniversary

Today marks the one year mark in which I decided to start a blog. This year, I have felt more exposed than ever. I really despise people getting an insight into my life. I really hate the fact that God has given me a calling that requires publicity, media, and anything to do with talking to people. This goes directly against my true nature and how I am wired. I have been against all social media for years until I knew I needed it. I can't stand it and grow very weary when thinking about all this networking. Do you know why? Because it is low commitment. It is the epitomy of our American culture - no commitment but desiring intimacy. When you are a public figure, people love to think they know you. I have had people ask me "how I'm doing" and "what's going on with me" when they follow my facebook posts, blogs, and music career very closely. The best one is "Oh you have a new cd out? I had no idea!" We live in a culture where people act like they are busy - so they ask you how you are doing as if they don't read up on you twice a day. This sounds very big-headed of me doesn't it?

Quite the contrary - This year I have learned more about our culture. I realized I have been quite naive about our generation. I have learned about how our generation lives on a day to day basis. I have been exposed to the upbringing of our next generation - how we actually teach our children to be as self-consumed as most of the world. I have read several blogs and seen how most people are only concerned with their own self-preservation and destiny. I have seen the immaturity of churchgoers, clubgoers, drugdoers, pastors, priests, and saints alike. I believe God gave me this year to cut the grass, and expose every snake in the wilderness. I am very thankful because it is important to know these things when everything around you is a forrest. When you are in the wilderness, God gives you signs, shelter, and food. It is survival mode.

I see people using social media not to uplift others, but to justify themselves. I have heard stories of passive aggressive tendencies with social media. You see it everyday on facebook or twitter or myspace or TV - When someone is feeling a certain way, they broadcast it to the world thinking that revenge is best served publicly. It is almost as if social media is about making what we believe real. It is as if we write our fiction into non-fiction. We make up stories and think they are truth because we wrote about it. We have one tool that we can use to think about others - social media. Every other second of the day can be about us - our thoughts, our own prayers, our life, our desires, etc. But the one thing that can be about everyone else - well we seem to want that too. We want it all. In the end, no one is happy - no one is joyful - no one is fulfilled.

I have seen this during the course of the year. I have felt it for others. I can see right through the masks. Social media has made people worse. It has made people more unsure of themselves. It has made people skeptical of their loved ones. It has made people unreliable witnesses. It has made people insecure. It has given weak people a bold platform. We have all created a platform with our own lights, characters, stages and directors.

The world of publicity is different from the real world. The world of blogs is different from the truth that is deep within. Those of you that take media and make it about yourselves should be ashamed. You should feel really guilty, and then change your ways. I am all for self-expression. But I am for self-expression with the bearing of others in mind. I am for being completely you in service and love for the world. We need more of this. We need people who are selfless and determined to love their way through this dark and desolate land. This is why I started this blog - to connect with you - to love you - to understand you.

Friends and family - we have a long way to go. We are all terribly misguided. We have all created a parallel universe that does not exist. Nobody cares about what your favorite color is. Nobody cares what you are inspired by. Nobody cares who you dislike. Nobody cares who you are dating. Nobody cares how many friends you have. Nobody cares about what your favorite TV shows are. Nobody cares what you think politically. Nobody cares about any of it.....BUT....they will start caring when they know you care for them. That is when your favorite color, and the stupid shampoo you use becomes important to them. Care for others - and care for them without yourself in mind - then you can post about what you ate for lunch - and we will share the meal with you.

Peace, and much love to you - John Baptist!

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The first part of this post reminds me of an interview w/one of my favorite poets, Marie Howe, in AGNI, a literary magazine.

Marie said:

I remember a man, a very lonely man, coming up to me at the end of a reading and looking into my face and saying, “I feel as if I have looked down a corridor and seen into your soul.” And I looked at him and said, “You haven’t.” You know, Here’s the good news and the bad news: you haven’t! I made something, and you and I could look at it together, but it’s not me; you don’t live with me; you’re not intimate with me. You’re not the man I live with or my friend. You will never know me in that way. I’m making something, like Joseph Cornell makes his boxes and everyone looks into them, but it’s the box you look into; it’s not the man or the woman. It’s alchemy of language and memory and imagination and time and music and sounds that gets made, and that’s different from “Here is what happened to me when I was ten.”